Managing Groupwork

Article about managing breakout rooms.

Breakout Rooms

Video Tutorial | Text Tutorial

1. Use the “Broadcast a message” tool to communicate with everyone while breakout rooms are in session. This is great to set-up at the start of the breakout rooms as a reminder of the prompt that students are supposed to be discussing and at the end to give a heads-up about time remaining in the rooms.
2. As the meeting host (or co-host), you can enter breakout rooms to check-in on how students are doing and see if there are any questions (similar to how you would usually walk around a classroom).
3. Make sure students are aware of the “Ask for help” button that appears at the bottom of the screen which students can use if they get stuck or have a question. (Note that the chat in each room is private to that room.)

Whiteboards

Tutorial

1. Can be shared from any device; they allow collaborative annotations
2. See specs for Linux, Apple, Windows and make sure versions are up to date.
   • Linux users install 'xcompmgr', per this help document
3. Within a breakout room, have one student share a whiteboard. This is done by selecting the “Share” button at the bottom of the window and selecting the “Whiteboard” option
4. Other students can annotate the whiteboard to allow multiple users writing at one time.
5. To annotate a whiteboard, select the “View Options” tab at the top of the window. In the dropdown list, select "Annotate" (Zoom resource)
6. Ask students to take turns acting as a scribe for students who do not have a digital writing tool.
7. A student’s whiteboard plus annotations is saved between breakouts and can be shared back with entire group in the main room